Canadiens Game Day: No excuses for Habs after this 3-1 loss to Flames

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This time, there was no excuse for the Canadiens.

The Flames dominated the Canadiens Thursday night in Calgary, winning 2-1 while outshooting them 29-18. It was the Canadiens’ second game in 22 hours after beating the Canucks 5-1 Wednesday night in Vancouver, so fatigue was a legitimate excuse.

The Canadiens had the day off Friday and didn’t hold a morning skate Saturday, so they should have been fresh and ready to go when they faced the Flames again Saturday night at the Saddledome.

Instead, the Canadiens were outshot 16-6 in the first period and were trailing 2-0 after 20 minutes with Sean Monahan scoring twice for the Flames, the second goal coming on a power play.

When Mikael Backlund scored at 7:20 of the second period to make it 3-0 for the Flames it was time to turn out the lights because this party was over.

Jeff Petry scored for the Canadiens at 14:20 of the second period to make it 3-1, but the Flames shut them down the rest of the way. The final shots on goal were 36-25 for the Flames.

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The Canadiens remain in fourth place in the all-Canadian North Division with a 12-8-7 record, but are now only two points ahead of the fifth-place Flames, who improved to 13-12-3. The top four teams make the playoffs.

Slow starts had become a problem for the Canadiens before head coach Claude Julien was fired and replaced by Dominique Ducharme. New coach, same problem.

Maybe it’s time for the team leaders to look in the locker-room mirror.

Or maybe this Canadiens team simply isn’t that good.

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The Canadiens have beaten up on Vancouver this season, posting a 5-0-2 record in seven games against the Canucks while outscoring them 34-19. Take away those seven games and the Canadiens have a 7-8-5 record.

In their first seven games this season, the Canadiens scored at least three goals every game while posting a 5-0-2 record.

In the 20 games since then, the Canadiens have scored two goals or less 11 times. They have now scored one goal in three of their last four games.

It looks like teams in the North Division — with the exception of the Canucks — have figured out how to shut down the Canadiens’ offence no matter who’s behind their bench.

“There’s no excuse for the way we played in the first (period) and a good chunk of the second,” Petry said after the game. “We should have been rested. We didn’t practise Friday and no morning skate today, so there’s no excuse.”

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No, there isn’t.

Unless the Canadiens simply aren’t that good.

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No morning skate

The game was a 5 p.m. start local time in Calgary, so Ducharme decided to cancel the morning skate that would have been at 11 a.m.

“I believe the guys did everything they needed to do to be ready, personally,” Ducharme said after the game. “I could see the guys before the game and in meetings they were all there and paying attention. The energy was good in the group. So I was a little bit surprised to see how we were just not moving our feet (to start the game) and we just kept let them coming. We can certainly take a lot from that start and we’ll talk about it tomorrow with them.”

Centre Nick Suzuki also thought the Canadiens were ready to play when they arrived at the Saddledome.

“I thought we had good energy coming to the rink,” he said. “I think guys were excited. Once the puck dropped we were sitting back. They dominated us the first period pretty well. If it wasn’t for Carey (Price) it could have been a lot worse. But as the game went on I thought we did a good job of responding but, obviously, starting off a bad 30 minutes is going to cost you.”

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Price made 33 saves as his record fell to 8-5-4 with a 2.62 goals-against average and a .907 save percentage.

“I wouldn’t say there’s a concern,” Suzuki said after the Canadiens lost their second straight game while scoring a total of two goals. “I think it’s just more of a disappointing feeling. We know we can be a good team. These points are going to matter a ton coming down the stretch and over the halfway mark. So we need to pick up points, we need wins and it’s got to come fast for us. We need to start building our game. Just got to take it to the next step.”

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Outstanding season for Petry

Petry now has 11 goals in 27 games this season, the most of any NHL defenceman. He ranks second among defencemen in points with 11-14-25 totals, one point behind the Tampa Bay LIghtning’s Victory Hedman, who has 5-21-26 totals.

Petry is leading the Canadiens in scoring, two points ahead of Tyler Toffoli, who has 15-8-23 totals. Petry’s career-high for goals is the 13 he scored in 82 games with the Canadiens in 2018-19.

Petry said he doesn’t think the back-to-back losses to the Flames are a setback to the system that Ducharme has been trying to put in place. The Canadiens now have a 3-3-3 record in the nine games since Ducharme took over from Julien.

“You ask anybody in our room, it’s not about our system or the style of play that we want to play,” Petry said. “It was the execution. It was on us.”

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Sutter sparks Flames

The Flames are now 2-0 in their first two games with new head coach Darryl Sutter behind their bench.

“They play fast all over the ice,” Petry said. “I think if you look at their game, when they don’t have anything it’s a well-placed dump and they’re right on top of us. Our struggle was our support. We kind of left guys hanging, whether you left your partner hanging when he’s back for the puck. We were slow for support and get in the position to break the puck out. We should have known that was coming based on our last game against them. They were skating all over. I think we didn’t do a good job supporting each other. I think we spent a lot more time in our D zone than we should have.

“When you play a team like that they want to come out and set the tone and get in on the forecheck,” Petry added. “We have to take a page from that. I think early on we weren’t putting pucks in, we weren’t managing the puck well and it gave them a lot of time in the offensive zone. So if we can learn anything we got to make sure that we control the puck and make smart decisions early on.”

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Scoring slumps

Corey Perry, a 35-year-old who started the season on the Canadiens’ taxi squad and is only earning US$750,000 this season, has five goals in 20 games while averaging only 12:25 of ice time. Only Jake Evans is averaging less ice time with 11:40.

But only three Canadiens forwards have more goals than Perry: Toffoli (15), Brendan Gallagher (10) and Josh Anderson (10).

That’s not good.

Suzuki had points in nine of the first 10 games this season, posting 3-8-11 totals. In the 17 games since, he has 2-4-6 totals with only one goal in the last 10 games.

Phillip Danault has one goal all season.

Jonathan Drouin has no goals in the last nine games, one goal in the last 21 games and two on the season.

Jesperi Kotkaniemi has two goals in the last 23 games and three on the season.

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Paul Byron has one goal in the last 11 games and two on the season.

Artturi Lehkonen, who returned to the lineup Saturday night after being a healthy scratch for four games, has no points in his last 12 games, one goal in his last 18 and two goals on the season.

Tomas Tatar has no goals in his last eight games, two goals in his last 24 games and five goals on the season.

Joel Armia has one goal in the last eight games and five on the season.

Evans, who was made a healthy scratch Saturday night, has no goals in his last 20 games.

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Some stats

The Flames outshot the Canadiens 36-25. The Canadiens led 23-16 in hits and each team won 50 per cent of the faceoffs.

The Canadiens went 0-for-2 on the power play, while the Flames went 1-for-3.

Petry led the Canadiens in ice time with 25:36, followed by Shea Weber with 23:41 and Joel Edmundson with 20:41. Toffoli led the forwards with 19:43 of ice time, followed by Suzuki with 19:06 and Kotkaniemi with 18:46.

Drouin had a team-leading four shots, while Gallagher and Anderson had three each. Byron, Toffoli and Alexander Romanov had three hits each.

Suzuki went 9-7 on faceoffs (56 per cent), Kotkaniemi went 10-9 (53 per cent), Danault went 5-5 (50 per cent) and Byron, who replaced Evans as centre on the fourth line, went 1-1 (50 per cent).

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Injury updates

Canadiens defenceman Ben Chiarot returned to Montreal on Thursday to be examined by team doctors after suffering a fractured right hand during a fight with the Canucks’ J.T. Miller Wednesday night in Vancouver.

When Ducharme spoke with the media on a video conference before Saturday’s game he had no update on how long Chiarot might be out of the lineup.

“We’re still waiting,” the coach said. “I think he’s got other (medical) appointments on Monday and we’ll know more from there.”

Danault was injured early in Saturday night’s game and had only 2:02 of ice time in the first period before heading to the locker room. He returned in the second period and finished the game. Ducharme said Danault’s injury was “nothing serious” but that he was far from being 100 per cent for the rest of the game.

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In the third period, Suzuki collided behind the net with teammate Perry and went to the locker room.

“I never felt anything in my head,” Suzuki said after the game. “I got a jersey burn on the top of my lip. I think someone in the NHL told our trainers that I needed to go back (for concussion protocol). I had no symptoms or anything and passed the test pretty easily.”

Suzuki returned to play.

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What’s next?

The Canadiens were flying to Winnipeg after Saturday night’s game and have a practice scheduled for Sunday before facing the Jets Monday night (8 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM). The Canadiens will play the Jets again on Wednesday night (9 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM), before returning to Montreal for six straight games at the Bell Centre.

The Canadiens will have back-to-back games against the Vancouver Canucks next Friday (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM) and Saturday (7 p.m., CBC, CITY, TVA Sports, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM) at the Bell Centre.

scowan@postmedia.com

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